Tag Archives | personal training

Revision, Protecting Others & Post-Fight (diary entry)

May 23, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Child and Mother Defence Pic

22.05.18   My 5:30 lesson brought my client’s first Basic Course on Self-Protection to a close. We revised the fence, straight striking, hook striking, transitional striking, the cover, multiple attackers, fighting from the ground, kicks and anti-grappling concepts.   We also covered adaptations for protecting others. This included using another person’s boundaries as a gauge for intercepting a threat, clearing the intended victim (the principle) and pre-emptive striking. Then we drilled removing a protected person from a dangerous area – […]

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Combinations for the Final Lesson (diary entry)

May 20, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
6 Attacking the cover6 (small)

19.05.18   This morning my client trained in the final lesson of his second course on Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training. We went through most of the material covered in the course and focused on specific areas that needed more attention.   Warm-up began with mirror footwork, fighting at long range and then clinch, setting up various combinations. We addressed the v-step and the tactics of angling off. I likened the angling off tactics to chipping away at […]

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Clinch and Sweep (diary entry)

May 18, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Knee strike to stomach whilst grappling (b)

17.05.18   Tonight was the penultimate lesson in my client’s second course in Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training. We continued our work with the clinch and exclusive worked in and around this range. We also spent the majority of the lesson going through three sweeps.   Warm-up began with mirror footwork, which progressed onto pad-work. We went through a series of punching, kicking and punch-kick combinations that all ended with achieving a clinch position. The purpose of this […]

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Transitional Sparring (diary entry)

May 18, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
ground

16.05.18   Tonight’s lesson with my longest consecutively training client looked more on putting all the transitioning training together. The warm-up began with mirror footwork, going through all postures – off the back, seated, kneeling and standing. We angled off for v-steps, attacked and drew attacks. This progressed into clinching through postures, drilling grips with strikes and strikes into takedowns, takedowns from different lines of attacks and submissions from the ground.   This moved onto the focus mitts and we […]

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Combat Grappling Continues (diary entry)

May 16, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
In-fighting attack1

16.05.2018   The 5:30 a.m. training continued with combat grappling, going to the ground and also adding on anti-grappling tactics. This is my client’s ninth hour in a 10-hour course on Basic Self-Protection. We began with revision on headlocks, initial head-lock escapes, back position, rear naked chokes and head-lock takedowns. Then we moved onto the cross-buttocks throw and striking from grappling holds. We went into some more detail regarding escaping the side head-lock. Here we focused on a deeper head-lock […]

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Gouges, Head Butts, Elbows, Bites & Sprawls (diary entry)

May 9, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
eye gouge standing

  09.05.18   The 5:30 a.m session today is the first of two anti-grappling lessons I will be covering today. It is this particular client’s seventh hour of his basic course on Self-Protection and time to start putting the pressure on. We began with the warm-up, where he placed strikes within a grappling context. This is a light form of pressure testing. It helps convey the dynamic of the asymmetrical, encourages striking whilst being grappled and is also a good […]

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Transitional Kicks (diary entry)

May 4, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

03.05.18   The 5:30 a.m. sessions continue with my client’s sixth hour of a 10 hour course in Basic Self-Protection. This morning’s lesson looked at building a transitional structure for multi-range unarmed self-defence, leading onto anti-grappling tactics. We had introduced kicks into the previous class. This aspect was covered again from a ground-defence position. However, we got to the ground-defence kicking it was important for me to better establish transitional movement.   My client first trained going through the four […]

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Complete Combat Movement (diary entry)

May 4, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Guard for street

02.05.18 Work continued tonight on combat transitioning. We warmed up with movements from the back, seated, kneeling and footwork. After going through a few fundamental details, we added in punching combinations and kicking. Next we looked at the hook-guard and how it worked within the first transition. We revised the half-guard/butterfly guard flow drill, which was then used as method to train the hook-guard/butterfly guard flow drill. Here we went back over attacking with a knee-bar. Everything was then brought […]

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Regaining the Initiative (diary entry)

April 26, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
knee (smaller)

26.04.18 The fourth hour of my client’s self-protection course brought us onto offline striking, covering and hooking. We warmed up with revision on straight rear hand striking, training the fence target familiarisation exercises and then onto the focus mitts for some incidental combination work. This was followed by obstacle removal training using the same incidental combinations. We then turned our attention to the offline strike. This is a counter to the attempted “Judas Punch” or offline attack. The technique taught […]

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Ground Fight Transitioning (diary entry)

April 26, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
DSCF1418

25.04.18   Tonight’s MMA transitioning lesson focused on the hook guard. This position needs good mobility between lying back and sitting up. We warmed up a series transitioning exercises that began with movement from set postures.   Snaking/shrimping forwards and backwards for lying back, butterfly guard scooting forwards and backwards for sitting up, knee walking combat base for kneeling and v-stepping for stand-up fighting.   Then we focused on the hook guard. From here we drilled taking the back and […]

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Owning the Straight Strike (diary entry)

April 24, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Rear palm

24.04.2018   Training began at 5:30 a.m. with my client’s third hour of his 10 hour course in Basic Self-Protection. We warmed with simple movement exercises designed to prepare him for the straight rear hand strike. This was performed first as a target familiarisation exercise, which is an important part of mental conditioning. I have known many people who can hit targets hard, but have a problem when it comes to actually hitting people in a pressure tests. We then […]

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Attack from the Skies! (diary entry)

April 23, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
knee (smaller)

21.04.18   My second private lesson this morning brought my client up to the six hour point of his second course in Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training. I make no apologies for my focus on the v-step this week. You will note that I covered this in another client’s current series of lessons concentrating on transitions and general combative movement. The v-step will appear again in yet another client’s Western Boxing course. I will discuss my personal history […]

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The V-Step and Dirty Boxing (diary entry)

April 20, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Knee strike to head from clinch

19.04.18   My second lesson of the day was a regular private class, where we have been focusing primarily on the three transitions and four postures. Today we covered this again in our warm-up, but ended up focusing on the v-step footwork and some dirty boxing.   I was first taught the v-step in Tony Hayes’s Muay Thai. Its particular relevance cropped up in the Thai clinch. I later correlated with angling off in wrestling during my time training with […]

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Kicking Flexibility for Muay Thai (diary entry)

April 16, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Jamie-stretch-small

14.04.18   This lesson brought my client up to the four and a half hour point of his second Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross-Training. The main focus of the lesson was to improve flexibility for kicking and improve kick-based combinations.   We warmed up with mirror footwork and then did some kick placement before moving onto dynamic stretching. This included Cossack stretches and split-squats, which serve as good callisthenic as well as mobility exercises. We also performed a series […]

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Four Postures, Three Transitions, One Fight (diary entry)

April 5, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
Against the Cage1

06.04.18 Tonight’s special double lesson took an in depth look at the four postures and three transitions of fighting. This was all mainly taken with an MMA context. We spent time looking more at travelling movement through the postures as well as the usual single transitions. After a period of dynamic stretching and training specific calisthenics we began going through the postures.   Four Postures: Standing – Stand-up Fighting and Clinch range Kneeling/Half-Kneeling – Combat Base for Ground Fighting Range […]

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Second Muay Thai Course Begins (diary entry)

April 3, 2018 | Diary / Training Notes [ssba]
shin block

31.03.18   This morning I began my client’s second course on Muay Thai for Martial Arts Cross Training. After warming up with a series of dynamic stretches and calisthenics specific to this new area of training, we discussed his personal objective for this course. He wanted to focus a lot on better developing and learning kicks. We decided that the best way to do this would to have an immediate look at basic kicking combinations, ensuring that they were being […]

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